“Sometimes more than a hundred thousand.” She looked down at the names again. “I can assume they arrived after 1918?”
“Yes. Probably after 1920, but 1918 to be on the safe side.”
“May I take this page?” She ripped it out. “Please give me your telephone number.”
Field wrote it down. “You can’t do it sooner? These two women have both been murdered and their cases are a crucial part of a bigger picture.”
“I will do my best. But it will still be two to three days.”
Outside, Field gripped the wooden banister of the staircase and placed his forehead against the window, gazing down at the traffic moving slowly along the Bund, far below. He felt the anger and frustration swelling within him.
It found its expression twenty minutes later, back on Avenue Joffre, when Sergei Stanislevich opened the door a fraction and then, upon seeing Field’s face, tried to close it again.
Field thumped it with both hands, sending Sergei tumbling back into his bed, the towel around his waist falling down. There was a squeal as a small, naked Chinese girl leaped off the bed and tried to cover herself. Field thought she could not be more than fourteen or fifteen.
He turned away instinctively and did not turn back until they had both hastily dressed themselves. The Chinese girl fled down the stairs.
“Right, Sergei,” Field said, shutting the door behind her. “I’m going to ask you some more questions, and if I don’t think you’re telling me the truth, you’re going to regret it. Is that clear?”
The Russian nodded, his Adam’s apple moving violently as he swallowed. Field picked up a violin and put it carefully on the floor before seating himself on the arm of the sofa and crossing his legs. There was a tray beside him, a syringe and two long metal spikes alongside a simple opium pipe.
Field sighed. “Irina Ignatiev and Natalya Simonov.”
Sergei clearly recognized the names.
“Who are they?” Field stood.
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“You do.”
“No . . . no.”
Field took a step toward him.
“Natalya . . . the second one, no, but Irina . . .”
“You knew her?”
“No, but . . .”
“But what?”
“Lena mentioned her once.”
Sergei had pushed himself back to the far side of the bed and leaned over to take out a cigarette.
“In what context?” Field asked.
“In what—”
“How did the conversation go?”
Sergei looked confused.
“Why did Lena mention her?”
“She was another of Lu’s girls.”
“Irina?”
“Yes.”
“Irina Ignatiev?”
“Yes.”
Field thought about this. “What did Lena say about her?”
“She’d heard he had another Russian girl over here in the French Concession. She wanted to know what the girl was like, whether I had met her.”
“And had you?”
“No.”
“Where did Irina live?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I’d never heard of her before.”
“What else did Lena say about her?”
“That was it. She wanted information from me, but I’d never heard of her.”
“She lived somewhere on this street. Which house?”
He shook his head so vigorously Field thought it might fall off.
